Ron Johnson cool to Paul Ryan-Donald Trump health care plan

March 16--U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson gave a cool reception Wednesday to the U.S. House Republican health care proposal backed by President Donald Trump, saying it doesn't do enough to reduce health insurance premiums and is being rushed through Congress.

Johnson's remarks came in a WYNC radio interview with former longtime Wisconsin talk show host Charlie Sykes.

The second-term GOP senator from Oshkosh critiqued Trump and others in his own party for creating "an unrealistic expectation" about how -- and how swiftly -- President Barack Obama's health care law could be unraveled.

"I'm not an alarmist here, like, if we don't do this in two weeks, we lose our chance," Johnson said. "I'd rather take the time and get this right."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, and House Republicans, meanwhile, have set a breakneck timeline for their American Health Care Act, aiming for a vote on the measure before month's end. It would undo swaths of Obama's law while remaking its mechanism to provide individual health care coverage and fundamentally changing Medicaid, the federal-state program for the very poor and disabled.

Asked about Trump's campaign pledge not to cut Medicaid, Johnson acknowledged it doesn't seem to square with his current stance. Trump is backing the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, which would halt enrollment in the Medicaid expansion initiated by Obama's law and cap federal Medicaid funding to states.

"That was probably an over-promise of what might be very difficult to deliver," Johnson said of Trump's pledge. "Sometimes people let their rhetoric get ahead of really what their capabilities are."

Johnson said he likes that the AHCA caps Medicaid funding to states on a per-enrollee basis, a huge change from the current program that calls for federal matching funds for each Medicaid dollar that states spend.

But Johnson said he fears the plan doesn't do enough to curtail eligibility for Medicaid or to reduce health care premiums in the individual market.

"I don't see enough reforms that will actually bring down the premiums," he said.

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